


Just a Joke

by orphan_account



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gave into peer pressure so here, Gen, Slight Mortinez, Tumblr Prompt, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trip to Jersey brings back horrible memories for our favorite medical examiner, and lots of confusion for our favorite detective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Joke

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the tumblr post that briefly broke the Forever fandom. Slight Mortinez, because I couldn't resist uwu Enjoy!

"Come on, Henry," Jo coaxed, beckoning him over. She squinted at him through the sunlight. The medical examiner didn't budge, only turned away, eyes closed and arms crossed like a defiant child disobeying its mother.

"Hen-ry..."

He groaned. "Why?" he whined, looking over at Jo with sad eyes. "Why do I have to go?"

"Because I'm asking you to, and you know you'll come." She smirked knowingly, her gaze traveling to his wary face.

There was a long period of silence where Jo stared at Henry, her smile deepening. "Come on..."

Henry sighed. "Oh, okay, okay!" He trudged over to the detective, who giggled slightly at the sight of Henry, who was acting extremely childish over this small matter.

"Why don't you want to go?"

"It's a long story," he said simply, eyebrows furrowed.

"Always is with you, isn't it?"

_Does he have a problem with Jersey or something_? It wasn't her favorite place either, but they had to go whether they liked it or not. Maybe he had a problem with boats. She didn't want to know, and he probably wouldn't tell her anyway.

\--

"Get on the boat, Henry."

"No." Henry refused to step forward. An impatient line of people trailed behind him and the detective, but he still didn't move a muscle.

"Henry Morgan, I swear to God, if you don't get on the boat this instant–"

"You're not my mother," he snapped, standing still and crossing his arms.

Jo narrowed her eyes. "Henry."

He closed his eyes.

" _Henry_."

He snapped an eye open, looked at Jo, and shut it again.

"Henry, there are people waiting. Get on the boat or I will singlehandedly drag you."

An amused smile crossed the medical examiner's face, but he stood, still as a statue, at the edge of the dock, unmoving.

Jo groaned, grabbed his wrist–being sure to dig her nails into his skin as a warning–and pulled him onto the boat. He yelped, trying to jump back onto the dock, but Jo's grip on his arm stayed firm and he gave in.

At once Jo took him over to the railing. "Pretty, isn't it?" she asked Henry, who had kept his eyes shut tight.

"Quite," he mumbled in reply, eyes closing tighter.

His eyes shot open when the boat swayed as a wave crashed upon it, and he wrenched his hand free from Jo's grasp to clench it against the railing. White knuckles soon formed around the cold, damp metal of the rail, and Henry Morgan seemed to be hyperventilating.

"Henry," Jo whispered, her voice softening, "I know you're... scared... for whatever reason–I don't need to know–but people are staring. You need to chill out."

He drew in a deep breath and sighed, eyes still wide in fear. The color returned to his fingers, however, and he blinked toward Jo. "I-I suppose I'll t-try."

His efforts were short-lived, and he turned white as a sheet when the boat lurched. He started to look sick as the boat pulled away from the dock, his hands wrapping again around the railing.

Jo leaned toward him, seeing the terror in his expression. "You okay?"

"No," he replied bluntly, his voice shaking. "At all."

She smiled softly, then turned and looked toward the front of the boat. "Look; right there."

Henry's shaking subsided, and the color began to return to his face, but he still yelped when the boat rolled over another wave with a mighty heave. He got a distant look in his eyes, and he shut them firmly as the waves grew and the boat swayed side to side over the restless current.

\--

**_1912_ **

_The rumbling of the boat suddenly awoke the doctor. His eyes shot open and he jumped at the faint sound of trickling water. Everything seemed uneven, and he felt nausea sweeping over him._

_He got off his bed and stood–but he barely could, for the floor was tipped at an angle. Something was definitely wrong._

_He made his way to the door, opened it, and a gasp of horror overcame him. Water flowed into his room at such a speed that he was almost caught off-balance. It was extremely cold–like icy daggers stabbing against his bare feet. He bore the pain, almost certain of the oncoming hypothermia, and stumbled as the boat shook again, the angle higher. He had to get out. He had to find an exit._

_The halls were not yet crowded, but people slowly came out of their rooms, sleepy figures destined for doom. With a mighty force he pushed against the wall, propelling himself against the angle._

About a 150° angle, he observed quietly. The wet carpet underfoot–and now, underhand–was not very suitable for crawling upward, but it would have to do. He couldn't complain.

_Another shudder. 140° in a matter of seconds._

_He half-crawled, half-clawed his way up the hallway. The door was straight ahead; using the wall as a balance, he crept toward it and tore it open._

_The chill of the night air was assaulting. His skin erupted with goosebumps as he grabbed the outside wall and pushed himself forward. Even more frightening, however, was the sudden splash of an enormous wave against him, soaking him to the bone._

_Oh, yes. Certain hypothermia._

_The railing was slick with water, but it did nothing to slow him._

_That was when the horrifyingly impossible but truly real thought came upon him:_

The unsinkable is sinking.

_With a tight grip on the railing, he slid just barely with the next tremor. This one was larger than the rest, almost earthquake-like in its sense._

_110 degrees._

_His heart hammered in his chest, longing to escape. He made his way forward, each step making him slip down another two steps' worth. He coughed and sneezed and ached everywhere. The temperature was not helping._

_Still he managed to make it quite a large distance away from the water that surged below. At this point, the panic had already become among those who remained._

_All the lifeboats were gone._

_He shut his eyes tightly, hot tears trickling down his cheeks. When he opened them, his vision was blurry, and he wiped them away with a new determination. The bow was in sight._

_A weight dragged at his leg and he panicked, kicking and yelping at whatever it was. He didn't care. He didn't care._

_He turned around when the weight subsided, and guilt swept over him–a nauseating guilt–as the straggler he'd kicked off tumbled down, hitting one of the electrical boxes on the ship with a discomforting snap, the body slipping off and continuing its descent into the black, nighttime sea. The tears started again._

I'm going to die.

_That was a vain thought. He scolded himself, gritting his teeth in anger. All these poor, innocent people were going to die, and he was worried about it. He, of all people, who could revive and continue to live his normal life, did not want to die._

_He clenched his fist, unclenched it, and wrapped it around the railing like the other. A constant up-down motion began. It was smooth._

_Sort of._

_There was a shudder that sent him sliding down the railing. He refused to give up, fighting his way forward, but the angle..._

Keep going.

_A silent weeping noise made him turn around. His gaze softened, and he sighed._

_The young woman looked up, eyes red and puffy, and murmured something under her breath._

_She hiccuped, glancing down at the ocean below. "Arthur!" she caterwauled, letting go of one arm and sliding down. "Arthur!"_

Was that the man I.. _? He shook his head. "Are you alright?"_

_She looked up at him, as if realizing for the first time that he was there, and looked back down. "Arthur!"_

_"Please, please hang on," he choked, his eyes pleading._

_"But he promised me! He said, he said to me, he said, ‘V-Virginia,_ I-I'm going to keep you safe.’ He promised me! Where did he go?! I should have kept him safe, too!" Anything else she was planning on saying was drowned out by the sobs that came, short and loud hiccups of pain, fear, loss, grief.

_The boat shivered, a mighty swoop that sent Henry sliding until his hand burned with the effort of keeping himself upright. He did so, however, clenching his whole arm around the railing. The biting cold didn't even faze him anymore._

_"Arthur!" Virginia's voice rang out through the empty night. She slid, flailing uselessly, and eventually let go. "I'll keep you safe!"_

_Henry felt himself shattering inside. Maybe he should just let go. It'd be a fall, a splash, and he'd reappear... where? He shook his head._

_With a thump, Virginia hit a piece of driftwood and slid into the threatening ocean. Even though he was high up, Henry saw the lifelessness in her as the ocean claimed her body for its own._

_His own vain sobs filled the air. The general panic had left his mind. His only goal–reach the top. Reach the bow. Reach safety._

_Henry felt a sense of overwhelming pride as the bow came closer. He fought for oxygen, sucking in breaths of freezing air as he fought to the tip of the boat._

_And he did it._

_The bow meant freedom to Henry. Safety. He needed that. When he reached it, he shouted in triumph, the fear subsiding into a strange comfort._

_Until it quaked again._

_90 degrees. A straight upward angle. Henry shrieked as he hung down, the arm wrapped around the railing his only salvation. For a moment, he thought he'd done it. For a moment, he thought he was safe._

_A huge wave of frigid water had other plans._

_It crashed down on Henry. The shock made his arm give in, and he fell with an uncomfortable crack onto the topmost cabins of the boat. Something was broken. He rolled over, fear completely forgotten as pain shot through his chest._

_All there was under him was empty space._

_He plummeted, screaming, eyes shut tightly. He passed what seemed to be hundreds of thousands of passengers attempting to reach what he had–and then hadn't. But then, he'd seen even more who just gave up, let go, fell beside him._

_He hit the black ocean with a crash, and the swirling depths claimed him as he welcomed death again._

_\--_

Jo nudged his shoulder after what seemed like hours of the slow, nauseating movement of the boat toppling around in the sea. He cracked an eye open, blinked with the sudden sunlight, and opened the other.

"We're here," she announced, as though speaking to a child. "You okay?"

Henry smiled, glad at the thought of dry land. "Yes. I think." His tone of voice was uncertain, but the smile stayed on his face nonetheless.

Jo watched with amusement as Henry took a step and lurched with the boat as a wave struck its underside. "First day on your new feet?"

"Jo," Henry began rather timidly, "w-would you..." He muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

"Hmm?"

"Would you hold–" Nothing else could be understood.

"Henry, speak up.""Hold my hand?" he squeaked, his voice small, uncertain, almost afraid.

Jo raised her eyebrows, hands on her hips.

"Please," he begged. "F-for balance purposes."

"Mm." She nodded, interlocking her fingers with his as they made their way slowly off the boat. At this point, Jo felt that the medical examiner was being extremely overdramatic, stumbling every time the boat so much as moved and dragging her down with him.

When they made it onto land, Henry's hand tore from hers as he ran excitedly onto the shore. He collapsed onto the ground as though in a movie where the main characters are on boats for days, months, even years.

"Please don't kiss the grass," Jo pleaded, taking him by the arm and pulling him up with a grunt of effort.

The pair walked in a comfortable silence until Jo chuckled.

"What?" Henry asked, stopping and looking toward her.

"Nothing," she insisted. "It's just... I hope you're not the same on the way back."

Then, as if realizing they had to take the ferry on the return trip to Manhattan for the first time, Henry let out a moan of distaste and shrunk back to the ground."Let's get this over with, then," he mumbled when he regained whatever sliver of confidence he could.

"God, Henry, you'd think it was the _Titanic_ ," Jo commented as they started up walking again, and watched as Henry froze, and for a split second utter horror flashed across his eyes.

"I'm kidding," she said, confusion dotting her tone.

Henry straightened. His pace quickened, and he shouted a small "Of course!" to the detective as she struggled to keep up. "Just a joke!"


End file.
